News On App Stores, November 2021

App Store 

Tech Talks: third set of sessions and office hours now available

Connect with Apple experts to learn how to create best-in-class apps. Tech Talks 2021 features office hours and live sessions with Q&As, so you can get your questions answered.

Full content and details (external sources): Apple Developer

Apple to accept App Store Connect submissions through the holiday season, forgoing traditional shutdown

Apple has traditionally shut down the App Store Connect platform for a week during the holiday season. This year, however, Apple is forgoing that practice and has announced that it will “continue accepting submissions in App Store Connect throughout the upcoming holidays.” 

Full content and details (external sources): 9to5Mac

Test your Mac apps with TestFlight

You can now invite people to try out beta versions of your Mac apps and provide valuable feedback before release. Invite up to 10,000 external testers using their email address or by sharing a public link, create multiple groups of internal testers and configure build access for each one, and more.

Full content and details (external sources): Apple Developer

Online group event in-app purchase requirement reminder

Last year, to support apps that adapted services from in-person to digital, Apple temporarily deferred the requirement to offer paid online group event services (one-to-few and one-to-many realtime services) through in-app purchase in accordance with App Store Review Guideline 3.1.1. In November 2020 they extended the deadline to June 2021, and in April 2021 they extended it again to December 31, 2021. These extensions were granted to support businesses and provide time for you to update your apps to comply with long standing in-app payment rules.

Full content and details (external sources): Apple Developer

Google Play Store 

Google Play Store is getting a redesign on the web

The functional website offers up the ability to remotely install apps, manage payment methods, and more. Google is giving the Play Store a design overhaul on the web. Seemingly rolling out now in a very limited capacity, this new Google Play Store design for the web pulls heavily from the design of the mobile app. At first glance, it looks just like the Play Store app on Chromebooks, but if anything that’s a good call by Google, as it leads to coherency across clients. The updated design retains app previews, the ability to remotely install apps, and support for movies and books alongside apps and games.

Full content and details (external sources): 9to5Google

Google Play Store UI test sees ‘last updated’ section removed from app listings

Google is no stranger to UI tests and tweaks, and it seems as though the “last updated” section on app Play Store listings isn’t safe from such tinkering. According to reports over on Reddit first spotted by the team over at AndroidPolice, Google is testing the removal of the “last updated” section from Play Store app listings with selected users. This means that you’ll simply have to guess when the app in question has last received any developer input, tweaks, or tuning. This doesn’t appear to be a bug either, as many reports in the original thread claim they too have noticed the section disappear on their devices.

Full content and details (external sources): 9to5Google

Google rolling out prominent ‘Offers’ tab in the Play Store for some

Back in October, the Play Store got a Material You redesign that was pretty straightforward in that it only touched the homescreens. Google now looks to be adding an “Offers” tab to the Play Store that makes for a quite cluttered bottom bar. Most people have four tabs in the bottom bar of the Play Store. If you subscribe to Play Pass, it grows to five. The default could soon be five for all users with “Offers” slotting in-between “Apps” and “Movies & TV,” which gets horribly truncated in the process. It uses a standard price tag icon and could result in a maximum of six items, but Google will presumably move to Play Pass in that case.

Full content and details (external sources): 9to5Google

Huawei App Gallery

Huawei AppGallery will stop supporting 32-bit apps in 2022

Huawei’s own app store AppGallery is planning to remove 32-bit apps and stop supporting them. According to information, Huawei Developer Alliance stated this phase-out info through email. The email content reveals that AppGallery will fully promote the upgrade of Android applications to 64-bit versions in order to provide a better app performance experience. In addition to 32bit apps on AppGallery, it reduces the impact of the Android application’s power consumption on devices. However, these changes will definitely deliver a smoother app experience to the consumers.

Full content and details (external sources): HuaweiCentral

Huawei AppGallery for PC gets 2.1.2.303 update that supports quick apps

Huawei has begun sending a new update for the PC version of AppGallery that comes with upgraded version number 2.1.2.303 and an installation package size of 221.2MB. This latest update consisted of a number of optimizations and fixes to provide an improved user experience. The new changelog for the AppGallery PC version includes optimization for the interface, added sorting methods, and enhances the PC fast application engine. Additionally, it fixes some issues and improves the stability of the application. However, this app shows auto-update behavior or supports automatic updates.

 Full content and details (external sources): HuaweiCentral